Weekend Reflections

This past weekend was awesome. Friday night we got to attend the Rochester High School play "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." So proud to see Mike Winich, one of our youth students play Judah. It was a great show.

Had a great time Saturday night giving the prayer at the Beaver County Young Life banquet at Geneva College. Young Life is an amazing ministry reaching junior high and high school kids for Christ. At the banquet we got to hear a testimony from Neil Berger, a Sophomore at Ambridge High School who gave his life to Christ through the ministry of Young Life and is now actively involved in our church. My friend Jason Smith, Area Director of Young Life in Beaver County and his staff are doing a phenomenal job reaching teenagers with the message of Jesus Christ!

Church Sunday was great. We concluded the series "Fit To Be Untied" with a message called "Freedom Catalysts." We discussed how each of us are called to know God and make him known. Each of us were created to leave a mark in history. God has given each of us the calling and responsibility of spreading his kingdom. In a way, all of us are preachers because our lifestyles proclaim something. We looked at how God desires that our lifestyles would in every way proclaim his life-transforming power.

We saw from Matthew 9:35-10:8 that ministry flows from compassion, calling, and his power that we have received. Each of us are called to be catalysts, sparking a chain reaction of freedom in the lives of the broken and hurting people around us. The closer we get to Jesus the more of his compassion we will feel when we see people. Christ's calling qualifies us for ministry, not our abundance or lack of credentials. True spiritual authority comes not from paper, but from God. What matters is not education or titles, but a burning passion for Jesus and a love for people. We certainly shouldn't downplay education or training, but it can never substitute for relying on God's power. What a privelege we have been given, to freely give to others what God has given to us!